Separate public restrooms are not universal. In France, they have open pissoirs and when I was stationed in Thailand I was a bit surprised to be showering in mixed gender shower rooms. I currently live in Hawaii and the Native Hawaiians were quite comfortable with public nudity (before American missionaries arrived) as are many Europeans today.

Prior to 1877, women in the United States, who worked in factories, etc., used the same bathroom facilities as men. As the country became increasingly Victorian, however, Massachusetts became the first state to pass laws requiring segregated facilities. Other states soon followed. But it would be difficult to argue that Victorian attitudes toward the human body have been healthy overall.


Much of the opposition to trans women currently comes from the so-called “gender critical radical feminists” who insist that it is not possible for a person to “transition” to a gender other than the one that they were assigned at birth. In their view, trans women are men—period. They maintain that women are sexually assaulted by men more often than men are assaulted by women (which is true) so it is necessary to maintain segregated bathrooms as “safe spaces” for women (which is not true, since there is no record of even a single trans women assaulting a cisgender woman or girl in a public restroom).

And of course, the whole issue is being shamelessly exploited by rightwing politicians and media personalities who know how lucrative it can be to frlghten the public by hyping the ‘threat’ posed by minorities.